Cyber Intelligence Insights
An unlevel playing field: Global sport and cyber threats
The sports sector frequently experiences cyber incidents. A range of threat actors have intent and capability to target the sector, including cyber criminals, insiders, hacktivists and nation-states.
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A new cyber insights report from CyberCX has found that the global sporting sector faces an increasingly hazardous cyber threat landscape as a broad range of threat actors demonstrate intent and capability to target sporting organisations and major events.
The report reveals that there are a range of drivers for cyber threats in sport, including:
- Economic drivers – Cyber extortion groups perceive sporting bodies to be more likely to pay ransoms to recover from operational disruptions.
- Socio-political drivers – International profile and media attention makes sporting events attractive targets for advancing ideological and political issues, while association with prominent third-party brands and sponsors can attract controversy and political attention.
- Geopolitical drivers – Sport is strongly associated with national identity and culture, increasing motivations for cyber espionage and influence campaigns.
- Technology and organisational drivers – Rapid scale up of staffing and infrastructure for sporting events can introduce complexity and vulnerability into processes and systems, while third-party ticketing providers and broadcast partners introduce supply chain risk.
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Key intelligence insights
- The overall cyber threat level facing the sports sector is high.
- Major events and sporting seasons increase sports organisations’ threat rating.
- A range of threat actors have intent and capability to target the sector, including cyber criminals, insiders, hacktivists and nation-states.
- CyberCX assess that the likelihood of cyber incidents in the sector will increase over 2024.
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Key attack types
- Cyber extortion
- Nation-state espionage and influence campaigns
- Cyber-enabled betting fraud and other forms of sports corruption
- Ideologically-motivated hacktivism
- Insider events, both malicious and non-malicious
- Business email compromise (BEC) fraud
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Key threat vectors
- Phishing
- Unpatched vulnerabilities
- Third party compromise
- Misconfigured software, networks or hardware
- Insufficient DDoS mitigations
- Insecure ‘smart’ devices
- Stolen or weak credentials
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Impacts of cyber incidents in the sports sector
Disruption
Reputational damage
Financial loss and IP theft
Sports integrity issues
Regulatory and legal impact
Personal safety and psychological harms
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Download the report